Three Radical Tips to Grow Your Biz Naturally in 2019

Wow do I love this fresh start we get every winter… I’ve spent the last couple weeks hunkered down (being sick helped with that!) and this week I’ve shifted into planning mode.

I wanted to share with you three ways to help you create the business growth you want this year with much more ease, and what I’m doing in my own businessspecifically, so you can get a solid example of what I mean by all this.

You are the heart of the ecosystem of your business – the keystone species in biological terms:

a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.

If you’re not thriving how can everything and everyone else? Not to beat a dead horse (I know, we’ve all heard the oxygen mask metaphor a hundred times now), but it really can’t be repeated enough.

What’s often happened for me though, and many people I know, is thatwe don’t do this until we absolutely have to.

I have a chronic stomach condition. When it acts up, it’s abundantly clear why my health and wellbeing has to be at the center of everything. I’m useless for myself and others without my health! So this year, a healthy diet and preparing my own food will be at the center, sustaining me, so I can sustain others.

How will you put your wellbeing at the center? Can you do it before you’re forced to? How will you keep your keystone species (You!) strong this year?

2. Focus to Grow. (AKA Do Less and Concentrate Your Energy on Your Greatest Gifts and Passions).

Sometimes we think we need to play every role in our business. Take every opportunity. Fulfill every passion. Offer programs in everything we’re good at. It can be hard for us creative folks to whittle things down to the heartwood and focus.

But it’s necessary. We can’t do everything, and we certainly can’t do everything at once.

I have a gift and a huge passion for creating nature-based community that supports women entrepreneurs. And surprise, surprise, THAT’S my main focus this year. I have many goals that all move me toward that one vision.

And that’s how I plan to grow this year. Focus on my greatest gifts and passions, let the stuff I’m not in love with fall away (or take the sideline for a little while), andpourmy energy into a solid plan for focused growth in one area.

And it’s such a feeling of relief to have this focus. I highly recommend it!

In THIS moment, what is most aligned for you? If you could focus on ONE THING this year, what would it be? Where would your gifts be best used?

3. Make a Plan, But Go With the Flow.

We all need to tap into our true north… that focus, that direction we’re heading in that I just mentioned.

This clarity is key for actually making things happen.

And… as I like to say, the weather is always changing.

We cannot be rigid in our goals and visions, or we lose the ability to grow, learn, and take advantage of new opportunities. We run the risk of getting myopic, obsessed with details and making things happen in a vacuum devoid of a greater alignment. We risk beating ourselves up and burning out.

Instead, we need to constantly tune into the weather system. What is throwing us off course and might this actually be a GOOD thing? In which case, can we make a conscious course correction? OR, are we being steered off the edge of the waterfall into an abyss (I’m just being dramatic J).

Most people are either under-planners or over-planners, but we need a fine balance of each!

I’m an over-planner (shocker!), so I make sure that I don’t get too stuck on the numbers coming in in a particular way. I set an intention for growth to happen naturally in my business, and let go of exactly how it’s going to happen (even while still creating the revenue spreadsheet!). Who knows where business will come from? I’m open to surprises!

Do you need to make a tighter plan this year? Or do you need to loosen up and let things flow a little more in 2019?

I hope your holiday was restful and that you can carve out the time this month to set yourself up well for 2019.